Sleep Dealer

My first introduction to science fiction, real science fiction, came by way of a two-volume collection of Hugo Award – winning short stories.  The stories; by luminaries of the Golden Age of Science Fiction such as Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, and Dick; used science fiction as a way to get at social and psychological ideas.  They explored the flaws in our civilization and thought of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people could endure them.  The explored the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in some possible futures, we could lose that humanity.  Most importantly, they were good yarns.  They involved, entertained, and stimulated.  They were the good stuff.

SLEEP DEALER is the good stuff.  Set in a future perhaps fifty years off, it tells the story of Memo, a young man from dry, dusty Oaxaca.  He has come to Tijuana to seek a better life and finds work in a “sleep dealer,” a factory that works its employees so hard, they often collapse on the job.  Standard stuff so far, but here comes the science fiction part: sleep dealers hook their employees’ nervous systems, via nodes implanted in their bodies, into the global information network.  Once plugged in, the workers remotely operate robots that do the menial and dangerous tasks illegal aliens perform today:  high-rise construction, fruit picking, domestic labor.  To paraphrase one character, “We give the first world what it wants: work without workers.”  And away we go.

Sure, there’s a love interest and a revenge plot and all the things we expect in narrative storytelling, but they don’t make SLEEP DEALER interesting.  SLEEP DEALER captures the imagination because it uses its milieu and the tools of narrative to explore the nature of immigration, the dehumanizing effects of global political and financial inequity, and the implications of the virtual life.  In other words, it explores the flaws in our civilization and thinks of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people endure them.  It explores the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in one possible future, we could lost that humanity.  All that, and it’s a good yarn that involves, entertains, and stimulates.  This is the good stuff.

Which leads me back to those Hugo Award – winning stories of yesteryear and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.  With films like MOON and TIMECRIMES and, now, SLEEP DEALER making it into theaters and onto DVD shelves, I suspect a second Golden Age may have arrived.  Once again, science fiction is doing what it’s supposed to do: challenge and probe and think and thrill and entertain.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

PS  Special thanks to Devin Faraci at CHUD.com.  Without his well-written review of SLEEP DEALER, I'd never have known this film existed.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Bette Davis owns every minute of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

She’s crazy. She’s creepy. She’s Ms. Davis in a brave, crushing, terrifying performance as a woman going from plain old mean to absolutely unhinged. She’s Ms. Davis never putting a foot wrong, scaring the hell out of us as we wonder what she’s going to do next. She’s Ms. Davis convincing us that she is capable of utterly cowing Joan Crawford, putting Ms. Crawford under her thumb and keeping her there until the bitter end.

Here’s the deal: Baby Jane Hudson was a child star on the vaudeville circuit. She always outshone her sister Blanche, the “plain one” who’d vowed to get her revenge one day. Things don’t always work out for child stars, of course, and Blanche got her revenge by growing up to become a movie star. Until one night, when a mysterious accident renders Blanche a cripple, leaving her trapped in a big old Hollywood home and subject to the tender mercies of dear old Jane. But that was years ago. Blanche and Jane have settled into a routine as invalid and caregiver. But Jane has a plan.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? lives and dies with the performances of Bette Davis as Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche. In an industry that values youth, both women (55 and 58, respectively) bravely allow themselves to be photographed in the most unflattering makeup, the worst lighting, the least glamorous angles. Crawford sells us on Blanche, a once-strong woman so tired of fighting that she’s on the verge of finally giving in. Davis steals the film as a woman who’s evil and insanity grows within her like a cancer. And the film itself, well, it’s a slow burn, a film that enjoys taking its time as it ratchets up tension and fear. This film knows that anticipation of fright is more delicious than fright itself, and it revels in it.

Yes, there’s a cheap twist, but don’t let that spoil things for you. See this film for Davis. Let her creep you out. Let her try to win you over, which will creep you out even more. But try not to think too hard about her. You might not get to sleep tonight.

Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster

GHIDORAH: THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER is just plain terrific.  It has four – count ‘em, four! – classic monsters in Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and the titular Ghidorah.  It has Martian princesses, secret service agents, even cute kids.  And it has … wait for it … Takashi Shimura in a supporting role as a brave scientist who comes through in the clutch.

Toss in solid puppet and costume work, a funky soundtrack, and even kaiju détente, and you have the makings of a great film for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

No, I’m not going to outline the plot.  It’s a mid-‘60’s Godzilla movie, but it’s one of the good ones.  That’s all you need to know: either you’re down with it or you aren’t.  In the absence of critical reflection or even a by-the-numbers review, I’ll instead offer this little vignette, direct from the couch in my basement.

INT.  ELLERMANN BASEMENT – AFTERNOON

A heavy rainstorm thrums outside.  ALEX (the father) and IAN (the son) sit on the couch watching a Godzilla movie.  ALEX has the remote in his hand.

ALEX (pausing the remote)

See that man, Ian?  That’s Takashi Shimura.  He’s one of the greatest actors the human race has ever produced, and he’s been in some of the greatest films ever made.  That, son, is what excellence looks like.

                                    IAN

Was he in “Kung Fu Panda?”

                                    ALEX

No.

                                    IAN

Was he in “Rocky?”

                                    ALEX

No.

                                    IAN

What was he in, then?

                                    ALEX

He was “Ikiru,” “Yojimbo,” “The Seven Samurai,” “Stray Dog,” and even the original “Gojira.”

                                    IAN

“Gojira” was too scary.  I like the later Godzilla movies, where the monster looks more fake and they’re kind of silly.

                                    ALEX

He was in “Mothra,” too.

                                    IAN

Oh, cool!  “Mothra” was awesome!

                                    ALEX

There you go.

Beauty in Trouble

BEAUTY IN TROUBLE has three acts, a heroine, no antagonist, and a weak resolution. It takes us to interesting places in the company of decent people, and it certainly rates as a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. But there’s nothing propulsive about it. There’s no reason why we absolutely must see the next scene, or the one after that.

The film, a Czech production about a woman with two kids, a husband in jail, limited prospects, and maybe one last chance to provide a good life for her family, suffers from that lack of an antagonist. Sure, there are some jerks (and one man (who could’ve played Gollum without CGI) who would have made an estimable villain in a more formulaic picture), but the trouble in which our beauty finds herself seems more a general life trouble than actual peril. Granted, life troubles are serious and challenging. But hey, I’ve got life troubles of my own. Battle a giant spider or something.

See, Marcela’s a decent woman. She works in a travel agency. Her husband’s an auto mechanic. Or at least he was, until a flood wiped out the garage and he’s turned his place into a chop shop to make ends meet. Once he’s caught and imprisoned, however, Marcela’s got to figure out how she’s going to feed her kids. She’s moved everyone into Mom’s apartment, she’s barely getting by, and her stepfather’s losing patience. And he may be a lecher. But then a wealthy, handsome stranger shows up. He owns a Tuscan vineyard (but he doesn’t seem to ever actually work at it – it must be one of those ornamental vineyards). He’s nice to the kids. He takes pity on her and takes her in. Problem is, she still loves her husband.

And, y’know, that’s it. She makes decisions: some good, some bad. Life circumstances change. Some things get better and some worse. But nothing happens that makes this stuff any more interesting than the gossip I hear about friends and relatives all the time. Life is hard. Relationships are tough. It sucks that we often don’t have the money we need or want. Fine, fine, and (as I said) these are decent people and the scenery’s nice and I rocked along pleasantly for two hours. But there’s no magic of cinema here. There's no particularly compelling narrative. There’s no photography to make me say “Wow,” and simply filming Tuscany is cheating. I was joking about battling giant spiders, but c’mon: surprise and delight me, for Pete’s sake. Or at least, blow up a car.

So, BEAUTY IN TROUBLE. It’s at least as interesting as keeping up with your Facebook feed. But I’d have liked a little more.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

My beautiful and brilliant wife was delighted when I volunteered to take the boys to DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.  She’d read the books along with our oldest son and liked them well enough, but she just couldn’t see how anyone could make a good movie out of the material.

Win and win.  Not only did I score points with my bride of nearly eighteen years, but I laughed all through the movie.  DIARY OF A WIMPY KID hits all the right notes, finds comedy in situations that would be sad or uncomfortable in less capable hands, and turns out to be a good time at the movies for all concerned.

Here’s the deal:  Greg Heffley is about to begin his first year of middle school.  If there’s one thing he knows about middle school, it’s that the experience is a Darwinian struggle for social survival.  Everything revolves around one’s standing on the social ladder, and his job is to do whatever’s going to move him up and avoid whatever’s going to move him down.  Never mind everyone telling him to be himself and find his own way: he’s going to be the top dog, even if he has to overcome the handicap of constantly being surrounded by wimps, nerds, and losers.  And, of course, being a wimpy kid himself.  With a diary.  Even though he expressly told his mom that needed a journal.

The film chronicles his year, and it does so with just the right touch.  The mean older brother (Devon Bostick) seems more goofy than cruel.  The out – of – touch parents (Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris) are out of touch in a way that parents will find amusing.  The wimpy, nerdy, loser friends (Karan Brar, Robert Capron, Grayson Russell) are misfits, but they’re depicted so kindly that we smile in comic sympathy rather than writhe in discomfort.  Greg Heffley (Zachart Gordon) himself – insecure, calculating, meaning well but oh so childish, is both our hero and our audience surrogate.  We know who he is and why he makes his mistakes, and he simultaneously wants to make us laugh, give him a hug, and send him to his room.  And then there’s Angie, wise beyond her years and the only person in school who really, truly Gets It.  Chloe Moretz (who played Hit Girl in KICK-ASS and here steals yet another film) is, assuming she doesn’t fall prey to the joys of chemistry, going to be a huge, huge star.

So I’m a big fan of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.  It helped me score points with my wife, enjoy some time with my kids, and gave me something to chuckle over even days later.  Much to my very pleasant surprise, this film is a winner.

Woman in the Dunes

You need to see WOMAN IN THE DUNES as soon as you can.

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s masterpiece works in so many ways that it’s hard to determine where to begin.  You can see this movie as a really cool, extra-long episode of The Twilight Zone.  You can see this movie as a parable of the human experience.  You can see it as an anticapitalist illustration of the plight of the working man.  There’s so much here: the pressures of society, the sexual politics of courtship and marriage, the tension between our animal and intellectual selves, the brutal leveling of Japanese society.  And that’s just the first pass on the story.  The camerawork, the lighting, the music, the willingness to exaggerate points of view and ideas in light and sound, the achingly erotic and the terror of nightmare – it’s all here. 

Told in outline, the story seems to cry out for a Rod Serling introduction:  “Imagine, if you will, a man.  He carries a driver’s license, a library card, cash – the things he uses to reassure the world that he is who is.  He’s out for a walk in the dunes, followed by an afternoon nap.  But when he awakens, he’ll find himself … in The Twilight Zone.”  He learns that he’s missed the last bus.  A passing local offers to guide him to a home where someone will take him in for the night.  The home is in a deep pit in the sand, and he climbs down by rope ladder.  There’s a woman there, and she happily cooks him dinner and fans him while he eats.  Later that night, he awakens and sees her shoveling sand outside.  He goes back to sleep.  When he awakens that morning, he sees her again.  She’s sleeping on her tatami mat, her nude body dusted with sand and glittering in the morning light.

The rope ladder is gone. 

I’ve given you the teaser.  Now, I’m heading into spoiler territory.  If you’re intrigued but don’t want to know too much, now’s the time to click away and put this film at the top of your queue.

You’ve been warned.

Ok, back to it.  It’s too hard for a woman alone down at the bottom of that pit.  She can’t keep up with the shoveling and she needs a husband.  He’s it, and there’s no way out.  The villagers sell the sand and lower rations down to those who produce, so welcome to your life’s work.  At one point, he asks, “Do we shovel sand to live, or do we live to shovel sand?”  Well that’s just it, isn’t it?  If you aren’t fully invested in what you do, if your job is just a job, if you’re trapped, well, then what?  Are you doomed to labor so someone else can profit from your misery?  Does the whole point of your existence become the continuation of your existence?  And what if you buy into the trap?  What do you do if you get a chance to escape?  There’s a Japanese saying which roughly translates to, “The tallest nail gets the hammer.”  Do you put your head down and fit in?  Do you keep shoveling?  Do you have a choice?

This is the kind of movie you wish you could have seen in college, when you had all night to stay up and talk through its ramifications.  You know, however, that you couldn’t have gotten it, not really, while you were still in college.  You could have related to vision of the woman (or, later in the narrative, the man) with the light dusting of sand.  But the role of the individual in the family and the family in society, the web of responsibilities among all the players?  These are just ideas to you.  You need to live them for at least a decade or so for them to sink in.

I haven’t even gotten into the technical aspects of the film, the way it creates a living world in the sand, the way it photographs sand as a metaphor for responsibility or uses its dissonant music to jar the audience while reinforcing the narrative.  Here’s a film that understands points of view so clearly that it shows us not only what its characters are seeing, but what they’re focusing on and what they’re feeling and what they’re thinking about.  The camera isn’t just a clever audience surrogate here: the camera reflects and directs, it’s organic to the proceedings, a part of what’s going on.  You’ve heard of the God’s Eye View?  In this film, the camera sees what God sees.  Oh, and the lighting.  Wait until you see the light on the sand on the body – one of the most memorable images put to film.  Watch shadows play across faces and flashlight beams glare down brutal humanity in its cruelty and hope for redemption.  I would pay real money to see this movie broken down shot by shot.

So if you’re young, see WOMAN IN THE DUNES and marvel at the photography and the music and the construction and the story and the ideas.  If you’re older, see this film and marvel at the photography and the music and the construction and the story and the ideas and the truths and hopes and perceptions and vitality of the cycle of life.  See WOMAN IN THE DUNES and marvel.  See WOMAN IN THE DUNES and never be the same.

The Furies

Only a fool or a hero would name his ranch The Furies.  T.C. Jeffords is both.

New Mexico, 1875ish: T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston) rules over one of the biggest ranches in the territory.  He’s larger than life.  He’s a hero on the range.  And he’s spending money faster than he’s making it.  His daughter, Vance, is unamused.

His daughter is Barbara Stanwyck.  She loves him.

But

you

do

not

mess

with

Barbara Stanwyck.

Which is the film’s strength and its weakness.

See, here’s a movie that takes these two iconic actors, Huston and Stanwyck, and sets them up in this great conflict: he’s promised her the ranch, but he’s burning through its resources so fast that the promise is turning empty.  She loves him, but she has to fight him to save his legacy and save him from himself.  And it’s great stuff, it really is.  The Furies gives us two smart and capable people and lets them have at it, and it’s here that it really shines.

But The Furies tries to have it both ways.  See, it gives Stanwyck this love interest who does things like slap her to put her in her place.  She accepts this, which seems totally out of character both for the young Ms. Jeffords and the actress playing her.  When she kissed this guy after his assault, my jaw hit the floor.  I expected her to put a knife in his gut – or, at the very least, swindle him out of house and home.  I mean, this is Barbara Stanwyck we’re talking about, here!  But no.  Later, there’s some business about the guy telling her that she’s going to shut her mouth and do what she’s told, she accepts it, and I sat there agog.

I’m not saying this isn’t a good story.  I’m certainly not saying there aren’t some great things here.  I’m not even saying that this isn’t a reasonable portrayal of how someone of Stanwyck’s character’s age and background might behave.  I’m saying that, given what I (admittedly, as much a prisoner of my time and culture as the next guy) know about women, it’s inconceivable to me that a woman like Stanwyck’s Vance Jeffords would respond to abuse as she does in this film.

So enjoy the foolish hero.  Enjoy the resourceful heroine.  Wince at the cavalier attitude toward domestic violence.  This is a flawed picture, but it works nonetheless.  The Furies is a damn fine western.

Kick-Ass

I didn’t laugh all the way through KICK-ASS.  Sometimes, I’d remember that young children sat in the audience, and the horror of that realization’d take me out of the film.  Then something ostentatiously ridiculous or violent or vulgar would occur, I’d laugh again, and I’d rock along quite happily until I happened to glance over, once again, at those little kids.

KICK-ASS is not a movie for children.  It’s bloodily violent, so foulmouthed it’d take a sailor aback (Sigh.  The Navy has changed.), and too graphically sexual for prepubescents.  It’s also hilarious.  From star Aaron Johnson’s perfect mix of idealism, enthusiasm and awkwardness to Nicholas Cage’s ridiculous Adam West imitation to Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s geeky riff on Mr. Glass, the character work here is spot on.  Add Mark Strong’s deadpan villainy as a New York mafioso and young Chloe Moretz as the astonishingly vulgar Hit-Girl, and you have one of the best comedies to come along this year.

Here’s the setup:  Dave Lizewski (Johnson) is a teenaged comic book nerd who wonders why nobody ever steps up, puts on a costume, and actually tries to help people out.  He decides to take the plunge and, for his trouble gets beaten, stabbed, and run over by a car.  But after months of hospitalization, a reinforced skeleton thanks to all the plates and pins installed after his massive trauma, and major nerve damage leaving him nearly impervious to pain, he’s ready to try again.  He’s ready to become Kick-Ass, defender of people who need defending, rescuer of kittens, getter of the girl, etc.  And it isn’t long before he meets Mr. Big and Hit Girl, a father-daughter team whose idea of quality time is dressing up in costumes and killing thugs.  So basically, he gets everything he wanted.  He’s got cool hero friends.  He lands his Mary-Jane.  He occasionally kicks ass.  And he finds himself in the sights of Mr. Big (Strong, a gifted character actor who needs to stop playing villains before it’s too late).  Mr. Big, of course, is ready to finance a nemesis.  And there we are.

Based on the trailers, I expected this movie to be violent and vulgar and over the top, but I didn’t expect it to be so funny.  Watch Strong and Mintz-Plasse argue over their plans for movie night.  Watch Johnson stumble from one adventure to the next, and watch him take on the baddies with gear that appears to be made from tin foil and lawn chairs.  Watch Cage apply his eye makeup before a big night of fighting crime, and watch Moretz do pretty much everything she does.  You will laugh and laugh and laugh.  Then you’ll cringe for a while.  Then you’ll laugh some more.

Either that, or you’ll cringe and cringe and cringe, then maybe laugh for a while.  Your mileage may vary.

Regardless, you must respect this film’s audacity.  KICK-ASS isn’t afraid to go for broke, and it delivers a rousing time at the movies.

Just don’t bring your kids.

What's Up, Doc?

You like screwball comedies? I like screwball comedies. I like it when everyone wants the McGuffin (or McGuffins, as the case may be), and hijinks ensue. I like it when the operator drives the poor sap crazy with her machinations. And I like it when the operator discovers, much to her surprise and delight, that she has a heart of gold.

And I really like when the whole thing is set in San Francisco, one of the greatest and most photogenic cities in the world.

So really, the only way WHAT’S UP, DOC? could have dropped the ball would have been to have one of its characters leap out of the screen and punch me in the nose.

Here’s the deal: four people bring four identical overnight bags to the same hotel. One holds rocks that mean a lot to an academic because he intends to use them in an important presentation; one holds rocks that are important to everyone because they glitter nicely in the light and are surrounded with worked gold; one holds underwear, which matters to the person who owns the underwear; and one holds a cache of top secret documents which may or may not be the Pentagon Papers. The movie is pretty much a game of musical overnight bags, the loser getting stuck with the underwear, and away we go.

Director Peter Bogdanovich does a great job of keeping all the balls in the air, perfectly executing classic screwball bits while keeping track of the locations and ownerships of various bags, hearts, and miscellaneous bits of clothing. He casts great actors like Barbara Streisand, Madeleine Khan, and Austin Pendleton in critical roles, and they help buttress a weak Ryan O’Neal leading performance as the hapless academic who’s no match for (really) anyone.

WHAT’S UP, DOC? made me laugh out loud. When I wasn’t laughing, I was rolling along quite pleasantly. This is solid screwball, lots of fun, and a good time at the movies.

How to Train Your Dragon

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is a perfectly fine children’s entertainment.  It does well with standard themes of divergence and acceptance, courage in the face of expectations as well as of danger, and the father/son dynamic.  It’s exciting enough for older kids and not too scary for younger, and it kept my kids talking about it for the rest of the evening.

Here’s the setup: young Hiccup lives in a Viking village constantly beset by dragons.  Unfortunately, he’s the smart and skinny kid in a brawn-centered culture.  He’s never going to wield a 75-lb mace in battle against a flying menace, so how will he find his place as a true Viking?  Ok, the title gives it away, but still.  The film tells its story briskly, hits its beats right on schedule, keeps things moving along.  I watched it while juggling three kids, two sodas, one of those enormous tubs of popcorn, a box of stale nachos and inedible cheese sauce, and a packet of Raisinets.  That’s multiple trips to the bathroom, more than one shushing, and two detours to the lobby so my preschooler could practice his “frog jumping” as the mood struck (Hey, that’s why we sit in the back.).  It was still fine.  When a story speaks to familiar themes and rigidly adheres to standard structure, you don’t need to see every scene to stay with it.

So enjoy the artwork and dig HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON for what it is.  There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

Fellini's Roma

There’s something you need to know about FELLINI’S ROMA and you need to know it right up front.  FELLINI’S ROMA isn’t about anybody.  There’s no hero, no villain, no 2^nd act crisis and 3^rd act resolution.  Nothing happens; at least, not in the sense we usually mean when we discuss narrative film.

FELLINI’S ROMA isn’t a documentary, either.  It doesn’t set a scene, introduce us to players, and watch events unfold in a (hopefully) dramatic and interesting way.  It’s just – well, it’s just Rome.

But it isn’t just Rome: not really.  It’s Fellini’s Rome, or the parts of Rome that Fellini finds most interesting.  There’s Rome the Romantic, an idealized city that exists as not much more than a fantasy in the minds of Italian schoolchildren in the countryside.  There’s Rome the vulgar, Rome the sad, Rome the painted whore under an umbrella, slowly baking in scant shadow.  There’s the Rome of the hippies, of the workingmen, of the Church, and of the ancients.  There’s even the Rome of the apostates and the casually lost, the bright young men with futures and the masters at the top of their games.

FELLINI’S ROMA is like a slideshow, an experience meant to create a feeling of Rome rather than of a character in Rome.  If you can relax your expectations and go with it, it offers something of the experience of the wandering tourist.  Perhaps you speak the language; perhaps you catch only bits and pieces.  Scenes flash by on the road or in the piazza, and you come away not with a series of photos or cleverly written travel piece, but with a feeling, an impression of what it means to live there, what it means to visit, what it means merely to pass through on your way to someplace else.

Will you enjoy it?  I don’t know.  Should you see it?  Absolutely, for FELLINI’S ROMA will give you a sense of the city like no other.  It’ll give you a sense of the city as felt by a man who has contemplated it, dreamed it, lived it for years.  It’ll give you a sense of Rome.

Wit

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

--John Donne

Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson), a formidable professor of English Literature and authority on the works of Donne, has metatastic stage IV ovarian cancer. As she informs us, there is no stage V. She's an academic, a researcher and thinker. She doesn't hesitate to submit to an experimental treatment that probably won't work, but that will yield valuable data for the researchers and thinkers treating her. She has no relatives. She has few friends. Her only pillar of support is her wit, defined as her "intellectual ability or her facility of thinking." (Wiktionary)

Get ready for a hard movie. I've spent little time in hospitals, submitting to one minor surgery over two decades ago. I was in at 6:00 am, done by 10:00, and out at 5:00 that evening. But those hours between regaining consciousness at 11:00 and getting picked up at 5:00 stand as some of the loneliest of my life. Vivian Bearing spends hour after hour, day after day, in the dehumanizing role of just another guinea pig in a teaching and research hospital. No one cares for her wit. No one gets her jokes. No one's intimidated or impressed by her knowledge or carriage. And studying the contemplations of a great poet is different than contemplating for onesself. I haven't spent much time in hospitals, no, but WIT put me there and led me to some contemplation of my own.

Margaret Edson, who'd worked in a hospital, wrote the Pulitzer-prize winning play upon which this production is based. Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson adapted it for the screen, with Nichols Directing and Thompson starring. They did a magnificent job of avoiding the staginess of some stage - to -screen translations, and Thompson reaffirms her standing as one of the very best actresses of her generation. I believed in Vivian Bearing from the moment I saw her. She scared me; she impressed me; she motivated me to pull my copy of Donne's collected works down off the shelf and thoughtfully peruse his Holy Sonnets. Most importantly, she touched me.

All I know about the experience of cancer treatment I know from reading Jim Beaver and watching this movie. I pray to God that if I should ever hit that unlucky lottery, my wit can get me through.

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

I don’t know how to write about GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA.  It isn’t particularly … anything.  Not particularly bad; not particularly good; not even particularly mediocre.

It’s just there, competently made mid-nineties kaiju product, boasting excellent miniatures and battles that captured my boys’ imaginations.  It’s adventure stuff, the kind of stuff I generally enjoy, and it rocked along well enough.  But it’s so slick, so blandly competent, that I can’t get an angle on it.  There’s no in, nothing to write about.  This Godzilla provokes no thought, creates no empathy, offers nothing more than pretty pictures of carefully designed monsters stomping their way through well made sets.

The premise is simple enough: Japan creates a giant, robotic Godzilla to do battle with the real thing.  There’s a conflicted heroine, a little girl in need of a mommy figure, and a likeable bioengineer dad for some human interest.  Oh, and there’s tension on the team and all that kind of thing.  But there’s not much else.  The battles rage and buildings fall and Godzilla roars and the human arcs go as we’d expect.

Here’s a film that inspires no jokes, no ruminations, nothing beyond simple entertainment.  It’s fine for what it is, I guess.  I’ve already mostly forgotten it.

The Machine Girl

A Japanese schoolgirl with a prosthetic Gatling gun for an arm takes on the Yakuza.

I’ll just say that again: A Japanese schoolgirl with a prosthetic Gatling gun for an arm takes on the Yakuza.

Reading that, you probably thought one of two things: 

A) Give me a break!

B) Where have you been all my life?

If you fall into Category A, stop reading now.  THE MACHINE GIRL is what you’d expect from a movie about a Japanese schoolgirl with a prosthetic Gatling gun for an arm who takes on the Yakuza.

If you fall into Category B, have I got news for you!  THE MACHINE GIRL is everything you’d expect from a movie about a Japanese schoolgirl with a prosthetic Gatling gun for an arm who takes on the Yakuza!  Dismemberments!  Decapitations!  Destruction of human bodies in ways that defy the imagination!  So much arterial spray that you cannot help but laugh out loud at its sheer and utter awesomness!  Oh, did I mention ninjas?  Not just any ninjas, but a crack junior high school ninjitsu team, complete with Spirit Pyramid?  And at the end, when she winds up with a katana in her hand, you know who forged it: that’s Hanzo steel, baby! 

That’s right.  THE MACHINE GIRL is absolutely awesome.  Comically gory, creepy in ways that only Japanese films can do, and loaded with so many stunts and gags and throwaway references that it becomes Tarantinoesque, THE MACHINE GIRL takes its supercool premise as far as its supercool premise can go.  This is exploitation done right.

If you only see one movie about a Japanese schoolgirl with a prosthetic Gatling gun for an arm who takes on the Yakuza this year, make THE MACHINE GIRL that movie.  It’ll blow you away.

Airplane!

Several months ago, I set out on a project to watch all the AIRPORT movies, followed by the AIRPLANE! movies. I always knew that AIRPLANE! was funny, but I was interested to learn how much of it was a direct satire of AIRPORT and its descendents and how much of it was original comedy.

It turns out that while AIRPLANE! does mock many of the AIRPORT films’ iconic moments, much of its comedy is refreshingly original. With its 2 jokes / minute pace, it needs more material than even four AIRPORT movies can provide. AIRPLANE! mocks religions, cultural imperialism, disco, great films, and the aviation industry itself. It’s great fun, and it kept (the older members of) my family laughing from beginning to end.

Ineterestingly, AIRPLANE garnered a PG rating even though it boasts a fair helping of sexual innuendo, drug jokes, nudity, and profanity. Today, I think this film would merit a solid R. How did we allow our society to become more restrictive in the last 29 years?

The Girl from Monaco

About ten minutes into THE GIRL FROM MONACO, I knew everything that would happen in this movie.

I was completely wrong.  I love that.

THE GIRL FROM MONACO tells the story of Bertrand Beauvois (veteran character actor Fabrice Luchini), a famed defense attorney who has come from Paris to Monaco for a major trial.  His client hires him a bodyguard (Roschdy Zem) who knows everything about the city and all the people in it, and mostly wants to keep them away from Beauvois.  But Beauvois notices Audrey (Louise Bourgoin), a local weathergirl, and she notices him.  Christophe the Bodyguard (remember, he knows everyone) is not amused.

And why would an unbelievably beautiful young woman go for the rumpled, aging Beauvois?  And in the middle of a trial, no less?  Why is she always carrying that video camera, anyway?  Most vexingly (to Christophe, at least), why would a sensible man like Beauvois allow himself to get so thoroughly, embarrassingly infatuated that he’d forget his position, his duty, himself with just one look into Audrey’s eyes?

Well, whatever you think the answers to those questions are, you may be right.  Or not.  I got them wrong. 

But the fact that this film is smarter than me is only part of its charm.  The rest lies in the relationships between and among the three main characters, relationships that develop in unexpected and delightful ways.  There’s also beautiful Monaco, a protagonist both sophisticated and simple, and a tone that somehow manages to keep things in the realm of light comedy while dealing with situations that develop into anything but.

THE GIRL FROM MONACO took me places I didn’t expect to go and showed me a good time getting there.  I’d see her again.

Invasion of the Astro-Monster

Last night, I sat down with my kid and saw a great science fiction movie.  It features an interloper from another world, one who masquerades as a native.  The alien is a spy, representative of a race that has come to the planet under the guise of peace, but whose hidden agenda is the plundering of the planet’s resources.   The alien, however, falls in love with native ways, joins forces with the less-advanced indigenous species, and plays a crucial role in fighting off the invaders.  The alien’s help, along with the might of the creatures of the exploited planet, drives off the invaders and saves the day.

The alien is Miss Namikawa of the Xians.  The native creatures who, in a rush of Gaian solidarity, repel the invaders are Godzilla and Rodan.  The film is INVASION OF THE ASTRO-MONSTER, a first-rate Godzilla film of the Showa era, directed by Ishiro Honda, written by Shinichi Sekizawa, and featuring special effects by the great Eiji Tsuburaya.

This is a fun, fun, motion picture.  It features an American actor named Nick Adams who is there solely to boost international box office.  It has nonthreatening, yet villainous, antagonists in the evil Xians, who covet Earth for its water.  Its creature designs are first-rate, its story rocks along pleasantly, and its alien spy (played by Kumi Mizuno) is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  Godzilla even does a happy dance after one mighty victory, an addition the director protested but made the final cut because Eiji Tuburaya insisted that it would “make the children happy.”

I’m telling you, the only thing that could have improved this movie would have been an introduction by Tom Hatten.  INVASION OF THE ASTRO-MONSTER is good, clean Godzilla fun.

(500) Days of Summer

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER is sweet and fun and delightful from start to finish. It’s a film that’s very much in love with film as a medium, and it tells its story with a joy and gusto that evokes a profound happiness to be alive.

I’m not saying that everything in (500) DAYS OF SUMMER is sweetness and light. This is the story of a failed relationship, after all. But the thing about this film is how it embraces life, its ups and downs. When star Jason Gordon Levitt realizes he’s in love and the film shifts into fantasy, what happens next strikes me as a daring, creative, and ultimately insightful journey into the high that results from that first connection with somebody special. When things go sour and he finds himself inhabiting the films of Ingmar Bergman, the film again takes a daring, creative, and insightful journey into the depths of heartbreak.

I love a movie with guts, and I love a movie with joy in its heart. Put the two together, and you have something special. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER is just such a movie. I can’t wait to see it again with my wife.

Trucker

Dudeman.  Dude man.  Dude, man.  Dude-man.

I’ll never forget flying into Los Angeles International, waiting at the curb, and overhearing a guy begin a sentence with, “Dudeman.”  That’s the moment I knew I was home.

James Mottern, who wrote TRUCKER, gets the California dialect.  When its star, Michelle Monaghan as the titular trucker, begins a sentence with an exasperated “Dudeman,” I’m right there in the California high desert, right there with her, and she’s someone I know.

See, I’m from the pickup trucks and rifle racks part of Southern California.  This film, set in that part of the state, understands the people who live there.  In particular, it understands Monaghan’s character, Diane Ford, realized in a performance that leads me to reevaluate the actress as a serious force.   Ford owns her own rig, owns her own home, spends far too much time doing too much heavy drinking with Nathan Fillion, a married neighbor.  She’s not ready to care for her long since abandoned 11-year-old son, dropped into her lap when his father’s cancer has grown too strong for him.

I know that you think you know where this film is going: Heartwarm City.  But TRUCKER’s more honest than that.  Ford doesn’t blossom into a fairy princess after a few quick lumps.  And her son never has been and never will be a treacly, tow-headed boy.  But these people have got to figure something out, and the film takes them there without betraying them, their milieu, or itself.

TRUCKER’s an honest film, closely observed and carefully made.  It had me at dudeman.

The Informant!

I’ve had it with the films of Stephen Soderbergh. They seem so affected, so aware of their own cleverness. THE INFORMANT!, for example, glides along on this bouncy muzak that makes me feel like the film thinks it’s smarter than the people in it. Since the people in it made suckers out of us, we don’t have to work too hard to close that circle.

THE INFORMANT! tells the quasi-true story of Mark Whitacre, played by Matt Damon as some sort of goofball moron genius. The film adapts Whitacker’s book about his time as an FBI informant, helping the Bureau build a price-fixing case against agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland while simultaneously embezzling millions and millions of dollars from his employer.

I think it’s going for archly humorous, but it simply comes off as arch. Eventually, it got under my skin, giving me the kind of uncomfortable feeling I associate with observing one person belittle another. Consequently, I distanced myself from the film and merely waited for it to end.

After the disappointments of BUBBLE, OCEAN’S THIRTEEN, and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, I'm done with this filmmaker. I just don’t see what he brings to the table.

Moon

I hesitate to tell you much about MOON.  It’s a film that parcels out information a little at a time, leaving it to the audience to piece things together.  The film takes place on a mining installation on the far side of the Moon.  Fully automated, the installation requires one man to fix things, to deal with the unexpected, to do the kinds of tasks that only men can do.  The job comes with a three-year contract and, as the film begins, Sam Rockwell has two weeks to go.  Two weeks to go, and he may be losing his mind.

No, this isn’t the Overlook Hotel in space.  Nothing that obvious.  Rather, it’s absorbing, engaging, thought-provoking science fiction.  In fact, it reminds me of a tale out of the Golden age of Science Fiction, like something Philip K. Dick or Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov might have written.  Sam Rockwell, quickly climbing the list of my favorite actors, shines.  And the world, the Moon, created here is fully realized and perfect to the last detail.

That’s it: that’s all I think I can say without giving anything away.  If you like science fiction, if you like movies, you must see MOON.  This is an outstanding film.

The Invention of Lying

THE INVENTION OF LYING is both profoundly smug and intellectually dishonest.

It’s profoundly smug because it mocks Judaeo – Christianity while so proud of itself for its cleverness that it fails to see the cheapness and lack of sophistication of its attacks. It’s intellectually dishonest because, like all beauty and the beast stories, it operates on the underlying assumption that it is for the beautiful to judge beastliness.

In the film, Rick Gervais plays a man living in a world in which no one has ever lied. There is no fiction; there is no acting; there is only objective truth. Of course, a world without imagination is a world in which no one could imagine new inventions or scientific theories, but that’s not important right now. The fun part, or at least the part which the film thinks is most fun, is that it’s a world without religion. Because, after all, religions are tissues of lies.

But Gervais invents the lie. He lies to ease the passing of his beloved mother, and people overhear. Those people tell other people and, before you know it, Gervais has written down the ten principles of religion and taped them to the backs of a couple of pizza boxes in a heavy handed mockery of the Ten Commandments. One lie leads to another and to another, and soon the image of Gervais with the Pizza Boxes has transformed into something like a crucifix. Gervais himself is made up to look like Jesus. And we in the audience are expected to laugh at the yahoos simple enough to believe in an invisible man in the sky.

Gervais also lies to attract Jennifer Garner, a woman whom I’m told is beautiful (but I just don’t see it). She’s meant to grow and mature and see that real beauty, real desirability, lies within. But she has no inner beauty. In fact, she has no redeeming qualities of which the movie makes us aware, leading us to believe that Gervais himself sees only the beauty without. This, of course, is the Beauty and the Beast conundrum. Beauty is supposed to see past the beast and perceive the lovely soul within. But the beast sees only the beauty, which puts him in the position of demanding that which he is unwilling to give: loyalty to the soul and not the appearance.

THE INVENTION OF LYING isn’t funny, it isn’t romantic, it isn’t good. In fact, it’s the worst movie I’ve seen since TIMELINE. Pass this one by.

Ghost Town

GHOST TOWN is a charming romantic comedy.

I hope its makers gave M. Night Shyamalan a cut of the proceeds, because it unapologetically rips off THE SIXTH SENSE.  Ricky Gervais plays a misanthrope who wakes up from surgery to find that he can see dead people.  One of the dead people, Greg Kinnear, needs the misanthrope’s reluctant help in protecting his former wife from marrying some Baxter, and away we go.

I laughed.  I cried.  But I’m an easy laugh and an easy cry, so that’s not very interesting.  What is interesting are Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear, who are fantastic in this picture.  GHOST TOWN hands them the same challenge: create characters who are basically pricks, but make them sufficiently likeable so the audience will care long enough to watch them change.  I’m not sure how they do it, but they do.  It’s marvelous stuff, and great fun to watch.

Technically, the film looks blandly fine.  It’s glossy, slick, and professional: standard, high quality, Hollywood fare.  Toss in a few glamour shots of Manhattan’s fall foliage and a couple of time lapses of the city lighting up and darkening down to spice things up, and you have a nice presentation of a funny, effective film.

Will GHOST TOWN change your life?  Absolutely not.  But it does what it sets out to do and does it well.  You could do worse.

The Return of the King

I'm amazed.

I just couldn't get in to THE RETURN OF THE KING.

I think it was all just too much. Every time someone named some location, he did it so portentously that he seemed to be deliberately hamming up his exposition for the benefit of the viewer. I wanted another character to say, "Oh, yes. I've heard of it. I'm told they don't let people smoke in cafes there anymore." The battles went on and on and on, with the occasional head nod to the concepts of fear and battle fatigue, but with the characters so unaffected by their constant dances on death's doorstep that I came to suspect mental dysfunction. The emphasis on the Eowyn storyline felt even more like an example of commerce over storytelling than it had in previous chapters.

And once the spell is lost, ROTK just seems silly and overblown. I found myself wondering more about how Sauron fed and disciplined his troops than about whether the plucky hobbits would save the day. I groaned nearly every time Legolas spoke. I shuddered at the inconsistent levels of power demonstrated by various villains as the need arose.

That's not to say that there isn't some great stuff here. Peter Jackon created a sense of life in the faded shadow of a once-great empire. The meticulous care given to costuming, set design, and the craft of world creation pay dividends in the creation of an immersive land. The story appears to be told about as well as it can be told.

But once the spell is broken, it's broken. I expect that the next time I see this film, it'll be in a couple of years (when I deem my oldest to be ready for the violence). Hopefully, the experience will help me see ROTK through his eyes. I'd like to believe again.

The Two Towers

I remember feeling disappointed with THE TWO TOWERS upon its initial release.  I felt that the film suffered from the decision to make the dwarf a comic relief character.  I didn’t care about the Aragorn / Eowyn romance.  And the Treebeard stuff, well, it just pulled me right out of the picture.

This time around, I reacted differently.  I still didn’t care for the use of the dwarf in comic relief, particularly as the jokes weren’t funny.  I continue to think that Miranda Otto represents a significantly better find than Liv Tyler.  But Treebeard looks great on the small screen and I found myself marveling at the film’s seamless blend of practical effects and computer animation.

I did notice, however, that this film could serve as the foundation for a couple of pretty good drinking games.  Every time Frodo apologizes to Sam or Sam to Frodo, drink up!  Ok, maybe just the first five or ten times.  Any more than that, and the activity could go from game to contest to disaster pretty quickly.  Or how about every time Elijah Wood emotes the addicting / controlling influences of the Ring by rolling his eyes back and giving us a half-Elvis lip curl?  On second thought, that would just lead straight to disaster.

Disregarding the tedium of Sam & Frodo’s tramp through the woods, this picture delivers on its promise to return us to the carefully imagined, thoroughly detailed world of its predecessor.  It moves the story along, keeps the good guys good and the bad guys bad, and generally represents a great time at the movies.  I’m ready for THE RETURN OF THE KING.

Sweet Smell of Success

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, a noirish assault on Walter Winchell starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, is funny and sad and gripping and unpredictable, right to the very end.  It succeeds on every level.

Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, a press agent and general-purpose scumbag who reminded me of a smarter version of NIGHT AND THE CITY’s Harry Fabian.  Falco lives in fear of and subservience to J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), the Winchell character.  And if Falco’s a scumbag, Hunsecker’s a flat-out villain.

Whoah.  Wait a minute.  I just figured something out.  I’m done with the “review” part.  It’s a great movie.  See it.  You’ll love it.  There.

Here’s the more interesting thing.  SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS was released in 1957, after Winchell’s career had gone into decline in the wake of the Army-McCarthy hearings.  See, Winchell had abetted Joseph McCarthy and had no problem slapping the “Red” label on those who crossed him.  When McCarthy’s star fell, it left Winchell vulnerable.

Vulnerable to whom?  Perhaps to a man like Clifford Odets, a playwright who had named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee and lived forever after in shame because of it.  Odets, who was called in merely to polish a script that was nearly ready to shoot, spent four months completely reworking it.  He made SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS subtler, tenser, sharper.  He wrote a film that feels like a dagger aimed at the heart of Walter Winchell.

One year later, the weakened Winchell crossed Jack Paar, host of the Tonight Show and the face of television.  Paar destroyed him, forever sealing the ascendancy of the new medium.

I don’t know which is more interesting, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS or its place in the history of American mass media.  Regardless, there’s no denying that this is a fantastic, fantastic movie.  See it at your earliest opportunity.

Cheri

Roger Ebert talked me into seeing this movie with his elegant review, linked here.

It took me a while to settle into it. Sure, everyone loves Michelle Pfeiffer, but how could I get into watching her falling in love with some poncy French Byronesque figure who wasn't, well, me?

Because she's Michelle Friggin Pfeiffer. Don't let her beauty distract you from the fact that she's an extraordinary actress. Under the direction of Stephen Frears (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, THE QUEEN, MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, among others), she absolutely shines as a woman who knows enough to know better and knows to not care.

Through her, the story's world opened to me. While I still couldn't understand how any woman could go for a man so manifestly unlike myself, I could immerse myself in Belle Époque France. I could enjoy observing the interplay of Ms. Pfeiffer and the formidable Kathy Bates. And I could catch myself up in a world of right decisions for wrong reasons and wrong decisions for right.

By the film's end, I lived in its world and cared about its people and wanted them to be ok. Even if I did think Michelle could have done better.

The Fellowship of the Ring

I saw THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (FOTR, hereafter) upon its initial release.  I saw it again when the long form version hit DVD.  At the time, I loved it.  But it has been a few years since my last viewing.  How does it hold up?

Wonderfully.

This picture is note-perfect.  It begins with an introduction to a Middle Earth and Hobbiton that bathes in golden light, the epitome of the pastoral fantasy.  It goes from there into a series of adventures of ascending danger and importance, adventures in which we understand the actions that led to them, the people involved, and the stakes at hand.  The adventures occur in a world wholly fantastic and entirely believable, one with a history alluded, not explicated.  This is a world in which people live and have lived.  It’s a world about which we care.

And the characters, which might seem silly in less capable hands, breathe here.  Anyone can make fun of wizards and dwarves.  By playing the material straight, however, FOTR makes us believe in these fantastic people.  We sympathize with their fears and delight in their heroics.  We believe.

I loved this movie then; I love it now.  I look forward to THE TWO TOWERS.

Julia

I read the reviews. I read about the awards. I read how great a movie JULIA is.

So it must be me.

I couldn’t stand it.

Here is why.

The eponymous Julia is such a vile, self-centered train wreck of a human being that she lost me in the first twenty minutes. When the story got to Act II, I’d ceased caring for her. When it reached the halfway point, I loathed her. When it finally got around to trying to get me on her side, I’d disengaged. I so disliked being around this protagonist that she ceased to be real to me, becoming instead just another character in a film through which I was slogging because I’m a guy who likes to see things through.

I lay some of the blame on Tilda Swinton, an actress whom I’ve always found off-putting. She’s a pro; doing a pro’s job to the specs of the script, the director, and (clearly) the critical community; but there’s something about her that has always kept me from getting on her side. Most of the blame, however, lies in the script. It creates an irredeemable character, then dares us to stay with her long enough to see if she takes a shot at redemption. But there’s a word for people who stay around the irredeemable: victims. I don’t play that game.

But perhaps you do. Or perhaps you’re just a more forgiving cat. Or perhaps you won’t find some of the film’s situations so profoundly horrifying that you can’t get past them. If so, I’m told that JULIA is a first-rate thriller with a can’t-miss performance. Knock yourself out.

Gymkata

GYMKATA wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.  Don’t get me wrong: it was pretty bad, but somehow I thought it’d be worse.

GYMKATA imagines a world in which the US Government would recruit an elite gymnast into the spy game, put him through a quick montage and set him up with a girlfriend, then turn him loose to save the world through gymnastics.  The athlete’s unique fighting style, his gymkata, comprises a potent weapon against evildoers foolish enough to stock pommel horses, uneven parallel bars, and lots of chalk in their lairs and killing fields.  After all, who can stand against a warrior so fierce his he needn’t even strike his opponents – a warrior who need merely wave his hands and feet in their general direction for their bones to snap and their bodies to go flying?

Yeah, it’s silly, but c’mon, you’ve gotta give it points for creativity.

And speaking of creativity, the people behind GYMKATA made some surprising and delightful creative choices.  Yes, beyond the sequined black cat suit worn by the love interest.  They filmed on location in Zagreb, giving the film some real beauty when I expected only matte paintings and the distinctive flora of the greater Ventura area.  They had the guts to actually set up a pommel horse in a town square so the hero could fight cannibals as only a master of gymkata can.  And they put together an extended sequence in a damned village of the insane that, while not actually creepy, tried really hard to be creepy.  Toss in some ninjas (The great thing about ninjas is that they wear face masks, meaning you can use the same five stuntmen over and over again.), a little arterial spray, and the aforementioned love interest in a cat suit, and you’ve got yourself a fun little movie.

So pay no attention to the fact that leading man Kurt Thomas while a great gymnast, made for an unconvincing actor and stuntman.  Pay no attention to the fact that the film is supposedly set in the whitest, blonded part of Central Asia.  And pay no attention to the fact that GYMAKATA’s plot is yet another recycling of The Most Dangerous Game, but with less logical consistency than many other versions. If you’re willing to take the film on its own terms as a cheap, silly, mid-‘80s adventure romp, you just might dig it.

To my surprise, I kinda did.